An Average Joe's Search For The Meaning Of Life. David Shaw

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СКАЧАТЬ for excessive amounts of alcohol, and I had even endured a two week drinking binge in Ibiza that culminated in yours truly spending a night in the cells for being drunk and disorderly.

      In Kilmarnock, I would regularly go out on a Thursday night with my friend Bobby. Friday night was usually with Cameron, Saturday night with Fraser and Sunday night with whoever could still stand. Kevan with an ‘A’ would often join us on a Saturday, although he didn’t drink alcohol. Kevan’s job was to get us all home safely, and of course to inform us of what we got up to the previous evening! Occasionally, Bobby, Fraser and I would also go to our local pub on a Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday, if we were bored. I got bored very easily. I remember scouring the pubs of Kilmarnock with Fraser one Christmas Day, pleading with landlords to let us in out of the wind and rain.

      It had to stop and eventually it did – we met women. I never really had many girlfriends in my twenties. I would flirt with pretty office workers when they visited my workplace, but if I met them in the pub I usually completely embarrassed myself due to being drunk.

      However Fraser started dating a girl that we used to socialise with and thankfully my alcohol intake started to decrease since my drinking accomplice was otherwise engaged! Fraser and I used to drink for seven hours solid on a Saturday night until we actually started to sober up, before eventually crawling home to our respective pits.

      It was shortly afterwards that I met my wife to be, Anne. Anne studied at college with Bobby and we used to talk occasionally in the pub. Eventually I plucked up the courage to ask her out.

      I had finally met someone that I wanted to get to know better. We started to see each other three or four times a week and very soon became inseparable. I was happier than I had ever been and there was no booze involved – well, only the occasional vodka or two.

      While we were dating, Anne suggested that we get a Tarot card reading. A certain psychic had previously told Anne that she would meet a guy called David with a sister called Susan. Guess my sister’s name? – go on! It’s Angela! – No it really is Susan!

      I was a bit sceptical at first. This woman seemed too good to be true. I was worried that she might be the kind of medium who will tell you warts and all: ‘You’re going to have three kids, one will die in a car crash, one will become a transvestite, and the other will end up in prison.’

      I was first to receive a reading. I deliberately kept my answers brief to gauge the psychic’s reaction. She commented that I was difficult to read and couldn’t really see much, although she did say that I would pass my driving test, which, to be fair, I was actually about to sit just a week later. Mind you, Anne’s car was outside with ‘L’ plates on – what a cynic I am! Meanwhile Anne received her reading and then rather oddly refused to tell me anything about it.

      The next day Anne informed me that the Tarot reader thought she would die in ‘a crushing of metal’, but that it wouldn’t happen for a long time. I was horrified that she had been told this. To me, this was bad mediumship. You don’t tell a client how she is going to die, no matter the circumstances. Furthermore, no spirit would ever divulge this sort of information. Why would they wish to frighten their loved one?

      I told Anne that I thought it was nonsense and she smiled approvingly, although I knew that she still believed the medium to be correct. After all, if you tell someone the name of the person they are going to marry, and get it spot on, then you will have inherited a strange power over that person – the power to frighten and to manipulate.

      OK, I’m back. Did you notice Black Hawk’s influence coming in there? You’ll get used to it. I know I have, even though these horns on my head are getting extremely heavy!

      So where were we? Oh yes, Anne and I met in 1990, got engaged in 1992, and surprise, surprise, married in 1993 – all very normal and straightforward. And so it was. Life was good, I was happy. My job was stress-free and I was living with somebody who made me feel much more confident about myself, without having to resort to alcohol. We moved in together in 1992 to a small two-bed semi in Kilmarnock. The house was only about five years old but I soon identified some peculiar spiritual activity within. The house was built on the site of an old ceramics factory and I felt certain that workers who may have died there were wandering around my house.

      We had only been living there for a few weeks when one afternoon Anne had left me decorating our bathroom, while she went shopping of course. Suddenly I became aware of the handle of the bathroom door being pushed down as if someone was trying to come in. I presumed that Anne had just returned early from her shopping trip so I naturally continued with my decorating. After about ten minutes had passed I suddenly heard a strange whistling sound from outside the bathroom door. As I knew that Anne couldn’t whistle, I decided to investigate. There was nobody outside and Anne was definitely not in our house – we had a lodger!

      We stayed in that house for nine years and it was a surprisingly happy house with just the three of us! There were many paranormal experiences and I was sure that a young boy in spirit was responsible. I don’t know why he was with us, or where he died, but he never intended to cause us harm. He certainly didn’t want to crush us in metal!

      When we later moved house in the year 2000 I’m sure he missed us, as the lady who bought our house telephoned me shortly afterwards, in a state of alarm. The carbon monoxide detector that was situated just inside the front door had gone off during the night and as a result the Gas authorities had switched off her gas supply as a precaution. She wondered if I had ever had any problems with the detector as she claimed that it would start beeping and then suddenly stop, before starting again. She had been informed by British Gas that detectors don’t normally work this way and they couldn’t understand why it was even going off in the first place as there was definitely no gas escaping from the house. I told her that it was probably a faulty detector and that I would buy her a new model. When my wife asked what the problem was I told her that our wee boy was simply missing us, but had started to play with his new friend!

      During this period of my life my main interest was song writing. When I say it was an interest, it was more like an obsession. I would write and record my own songs before sending them off to people like Simon Cowell, who would subsequently flush them down his toilet. It was an expensive hobby and one that was always really destined to fail. I always felt that I had the ability to succeed but the music business is like the lottery, there are millions of hopefuls looking for that one big prize – and ultimately greed and ego govern that prize.

      I also played in several bands as a guitarist. We were never very good; in fact we were total rubbish. How we never got a record deal I’ll never know!

      The nineties came and disappeared in a flash. The millennium would soon be upon us and my life would suddenly change quite drastically. The quiet, peaceful, happy life that I had enjoyed for the last nine years or so was about to become a roller coaster ride of emotions and a prelude to my spiritual re-awakening.

      Incidentally, I did pass my driving test. Job done!

      Now where did I park that ‘metal crushing’ Tonka truck?

       Chapter 6

       THE MILLENNIUM

      As the year 2000 rapidly approached, the world held its breath hoping our everyday lives wouldn’t collapse under a cloud of smouldering mass hysteria, for apparently we were being held to ransom by a mysterious phenomenon known simply as the ‘millennium bug’.

      And as the clock tentatively crept past midnight on the 1^st СКАЧАТЬ